The MA Ulm issue.

[Xietor]

the only bad thing about cranking 300 Ulm Infantry and an army of Black knights. Then a mage teleports in with a runesmasher, eye void, spell focus and casts master enslave and that person owns your army.

Yeah you can cast tempering the will if you have the luxury of going to thau. 5. That raises the mr from 9 to? I had commanders with 24 mr get enslaved in alpaca. heh. what chance does mr 9 have?

Of course you may get your commanders mind hunted, and be stuck with no one to cast tempering the will. Then it is pretty much automatic enslavement.

Maybe master enslave needs toned down a bit. But that is for a different thread. It is potent now though, and Ulm is last in being able to defend against it.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Well, none really... but Master Enslave is a Thuamaturgy 9 spell, requiring an S8 mage, something thats not necessarily common. It's not the worlds fairest comparison. Tempering of the Will can be helpful against plenty of other spells, though.

620 RP versus 4600 on standard... That's CORRECTION: 1/7th of the effort required. If you're not facing anything that require you to boost your resistance earlier than that, then you're quite lucky. You'll have better odds than many 10 or 11 MR nations....

Regards to mind hunt, you've still got the not-quite effective enough lead shields. Though your Master Smiths will have a decent chance of surviving, the cost of mind hunt is obscenely low.

Even if you can't wipe them out, it may be worth finding the time to kill a level 8/9 astral pretender early, a couple of times. It'll stop wishery.

[KissBlade]

This will probably come as a surprise for most people but IMO MA Ulm isn't as terrible as it's made out to be. I think most people are either feeling the after effects of Dom II (where they are the worst nation) or the CB where Earth boots got bumped in cost and blade wind nerfed. In base, MA TC and MA Argatha are both in a worse off position (just going off the top of my head) with MA Oceania not doing too great either. Ulm troops are decent if you spread them out to avoid them clustering (and as a result eating up) too many magic attacks. Their mages, while unversatile, are actually decent in battle between earth buffs, decent prot, blade wind + magna spells. Arbalests are crappy but sappers are actually usable for their bonus + xbows. Drain 1 isn't too terrible compared to magic 3 in base if you're relying on indie mage research and drain 3 is just free points if you're planning on ending the game pre turn 50.

[DrPraetorious]

I disagree about MA Agartha. Certainly it isn't the strongest position early on, and the lack of crossbows can be comically painful - but in terms of combat magic, a golem crafter is just like a master smith except that he also has a water. We can have theoretical arguments all day - but the fact is, I've seen MA Agartha have a lot more success in a significant number of games, such that I doubt it's a fluke.

I agree about MA T'ien Ch'i - but MA T'ien Ch'i is very different from Ulm, and a fix is in the works from the devs.

[Salamander8]

I concur with Doctor Praetorius about MA Agartha compared to MA Ulm. MA Agartha is far from the strongest, and has some glaring weaknesses, but is functionally better than MA Ulm is. The infantry is somewhat similar, if lacking solid weaponry, but is less easily exhausted, has at least average MR, and has darkvision. MA Agartha's mages and priests are more diverse and they have some solid national summons as well. MA Agartha's golem cult effect can make a large difference for not only it's national statues, but for other construction summons as well. In Chinchilla, in which I am MA Agartha, I repeatedly beat MA Tien Chi's arrow swarms between my infantry's shields, and my statues' high protection and hit points to the point where he called off the war. I would of course still rank MA Agartha as not the best out there, but certainly a better performer than MA Ulm.

I've always liked MA Ulm's idea, but in practice they have so many problems. Slow and heavy infantry with bad MR get eaten alive by battlefield magic before they can even close the gap. As MA R'Lyeh fighting them for an example, I have my artillery brigades of ilithids mind blast away while my infantry blocks hold and attack and am often able to force Ulm to rout before they ever get to melee. The Arbalests fire so slowly and from such extreme range (and I usually split my ilithid groups into fire closest and fire archers as well), that they have little to no effect on even my poorly armored lobo guard chaff. I would like to see exactly what Dr. Praetorius was asking for: force the enemy, somehow, to meet Ulm on Ulm's terms.

On a related note, I was under the impression that shields did not help troops from friendly fire since the shields are in front and the projectiles hit you in the back and thusly provided no bonus against them. Is this not the case?

[Arralen]

Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

[Meglobob]

Arralen said:
Instead of argueing what-ifs, simply try out my slightly improved Ulm :

[Dom3 MOD : MA Ulm] Black Steel of Ulm

The only problem with this, is in MP haven't ALL the players got to download the mod to play the game? Which further complicates setting up MP games.

However good mod Arralen. Lets hope Illwinter get the, 'hint' with MA Ulm and spice it up a bit in vanilla sometime soon.

Need to get Kristoffer or Johan to play MA Ulm in a MP game. It will then get loads of patch goodness, just like MA Mictlan + others will get in this next patch.

Its a fun way to get the devs to 'upgrade' a nation.

[Sandman]

I'd say MA T'ien Ch'i isn't worse either. They're not exactly a powerhouse, but they've got enough magical and troop diversity to keep the enemy on their toes.